Winter Predictions

Cupcake and I have noticed a few signs around The Acre here lately, and wanted to share our winter prediction. You heard it here first.....
There are four signs that are screaming bad winter, and all of them you can see from the back porch of the house.

Pine cones, and a lot of them, in bunches.

Pine cones heavy, but only in the tops of the pine tree. None down low

Maple trees are already turning, have been since the last week of August

And our friends the spiders, they are all building webs in the tops of trees and on the high spots of the house, which really excites Cupcake (that was sarcasm, Sheldon).
Everyone has heard that the wooly worm is suppose to be the winter prediction gold standard, but since we have a yard full of chickens, wooly worms are nowhere to be found. We can't say if it will be a winter of ice, snow, or just plain cold, but as they say on Game of Thrones  "Prepare yourselves, winter is coming".
K&K

Weekend Update Sept 7-8

Another weekend, another busy week. We tried a new thing to can this weekend, wanted to share with the world. Cupcake is a fried green tomato junkie and we were becoming depressed that the green tomato season would soon be coming to an end. BUT....Cupcake being the research specialist that she is, found a new way to keep the joy all winter long. Canned green tomatoes.

The process is probably the most simple of anything we can. Slice green tomatoes, pack them in jars, add salt and water. Water bath for seven minutes, you have preserved green tomatoes. We will be devoting the rest of our crop to keeping a smile on Cupcake's face this winter.

We also noticed the rhubarb in the garden was still long and strong. By this time last year the rhubarb had just about died off, but with all the cool weather and rain this summer, it appears to have caught it's second wind. We cut it way back and got about a basket full. Still have sprouts and new shoots, so we hope for one more canning, because rhubarb cobbler rocks.

Six more cobblers in the basement ready for snowy days.
The next thing we worked on this week was a pumpkin roll. Big Man loves some pumpkin roll so this is just another reason to love fall of the year. For added personal touch, we used one of our farm raised pumpkins to make it. We cubed up about two cups of pumpkin and baked it until it was soft. Then we added it to the mixer with three eggs and whipped it smooth.

We spooned in flour and spices by hand, and folded it together until it was smooth, then placed the batter on a greased cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Bake at 400 for fifteen minutes. We also added nuts to the batter, for another personal twist.

While the pumpkin roll was baking, Big Man made his world famous cream cheese filling using cream cheese, powder sugar and vanilla extract.

After the roll bakes, we rolled it into a towel covered in powdered sugar, rolled it up and allowed it to cool.

Then we unroll the pumpkin bread and spread the cream cheese. Re-roll the bread and cover with more powdered sugar, and you get a little something like this...

This is just the first of many this fall, we're pretty sure.

It's chicken wing Sunday, we hope everyone had a great weekend like we did.
K&K

An Updated Update

We have made a few updates to prior updates, we thought we would share a few just to catch everyone up. First, we did a little decorating outside the house. We cut down a few corn stalks from the garden and spread around some pumpkins, and let everyone know fall is here...

Earlier in the week, our half way point for Foxgrape wine hit. We had to remove the pulp from the mash and add a little sugar. The wine has a deep purple color, and has a very pleasant flavor. We're looking forward to this being done next weekend.

We broke into the jalapeno jelly this past week as well. We opened one for The Acre, and Cupcake took one jar to work with her. Neither jar lasted longer than two days. This one is a winner

Kattie Grace helped us stain the trim and doorways this week as well...

"Critter Gitter" took to the woods on opening day of dove season. We've seen dozens of the birds around The Acre all summer long, they set on the wires out front in large gangs. Since opening day, we've yet to see one stinking bird.

So we figure these guys won't be around much longer either, because bow season opens in a month. Don't tell us critters don't know when season opens...

This catches us up on past posts. New goings on in the works right now.
K&K

Shack Bitch

I had a sergeant back in the late '90s that took an eager young me out of patrol and put me into a plain clothes unit. To this day I hold him in high regard for giving me a chance to shine. It was by far the best duty (hehehehehe, I said "duty") assignment I had while in the Peoples Republic of Maryland. The point of my lead in is, he coined the phrase "Shack Bitch". I dunno if he actually coined it, but he used it and it stuck with me, so I give him credit. Since the theme for my little group of bloggers is nicknames, he was known as "Badd Dewd" in his day.
Any ways, a shack bitch is the guy in your hunt cabin who stays behind while the others trek out in search of deer. The designated shack bitch cleans up and preps a meal for the other guys, everyone gets a turn. Since I was wounded in '07 and retired in '08, I dont venture too far from the house on my bad knees. I do keep it clean, and have a hot meal waiting for Cupcake every night for the most part, so I refer to myself as a shack bitch.  Today was a shack bitch kind of day.
One of the joys of log home living is staining the thing. I was told every five years the stain would fade and it would be my destiny to re-do it. This summer is four years. Thanks Uncle Billy!
This is what the south wall looked like this morning...

And after a few hours of toil, it now looks like this....

The drawback to living in BFE is if you run out of something like say log stain, you have a two hour round trip to fetch back more. I know because I had a two hour round trip to fetch back more. I got most of the house done, but have a local handy man coming to finish the high places. I dont do ladders very well.
After a few hours of upkeep, I started dinner for Cupcake. Tonight is Smoked beef brisket baked burrito's. I thought I would share how to do them. First, smoke a beef brisket.
Then cube up a couple pounds of meat, add some burrito mix, a few special spices, and heat in a large pan. For the sauce I use one can of refried beans and a large can of enchilada sauce. Heat them together until the beans are smooth in the sauce.

After you get your fixings heated up, I fill a burrito up with the meat and fold it up. Place in a greased casserole dish...

Then pour your bean sauce over the burrito's, and cover with cheese.

Bake at 400 until the sauce is bubbling, dish and serve. Cupcake is on her way home as I type this, so I'm off to set the table.
Just K today

First Blog of September

Our weekend update is another busy one this week. First things first. Fall has fallen here at The Acre. Cupcake and I have been harvesting pumpkins and gourds for the past couple weeks, today we started decorating. When I say we, I mean I tried to stay out of Cupcake's way.

We dug our first five gallon bucket of potatoes this weekend. So we scrubbed them up and did our first canning of the year. Being a holiday weekend, we went all Red/White/Blue. 'Merica

We also had a gallon or so of jalapeno peppers from the garden saved up. Last year we canned "Lawman Candy" which is code for candied jalapeno peppers, but we still have quite a few jars of those left over, so we went with jalapeno jelly this time. First step in our jelly making is to slice the peppers and cut the seeds out. Cupcake uses a lit candle to beat down the pepper mist. If you've ever been hit with OC spray, you understand.

Next we put the peppers in a blender with one cup of apple cider vinegar and blended them smooth.

After we got them smoothed down, its into the cook pot with the Sure-Gel, add sugar, bring to a boil, then off to the jars.

We got nine jelly jars full this go around. Now we can hear you all saying "who could stand to eat that?" The sugar really cuts down the heat, and although it's still a little hot, we found a way to enjoy it. Take a cracker, a bit of cream cheese spread on it, then a dollop of jalapeno jelly, and you have a very tasty snack for entertaining folks, or just a special treat after another 14 hour day of working around The Acre.

What may be our last round of tomatoes came from Pop's garden this week, and to make sure they didnt go to waste, we made another batch of tomato sauce. This time we went all chunky and we believe this is how we will make all of our sauce next year. It really turned out well.

Eight more quarts of sauce in the basement, ready for a long cold winter. Tomorrow is opening day of Dove season, and "Critter Gitter" has decided to spend it in the bush, with any luck an opening day blog will follow with a few squab for supper. And as always it's 'Chicken wing Sunday'. We hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday weekend. If you see one out, thank a Lawman/Fireman/EMT/Soldier for what they do, because they dont get to enjoy holiday weekends off.
K&K

Weekend Update August 24-25

The 80's crowd will get it...

Another busy week here at The Acre, and it's beginning to look a lot like fall

 

But still have plenty of summer left too

 As promised earlier, we have had our eye on a big ol batch of wild (Fox) grapes. This weekend was the time to get busy picking. We picked a little over a bushel, these are the last two baskets from yesterday

Old timers talk about two uses for wild grapes. Jelly and wine. We got busy doing both this weekend. First the jelly. We heated about a half bushel in water until the water just started to boil, then removed the grapes and mashed them, then strained the juice.

We got about two gallons of juice from this pot, then it was off to the jelly factory.

We got our years worth of jelly out of this batch, all happy in the basement now

First thing Sunday morning we broke open a jar and tried it on buttermilk biscuits, as is our Sunday morning family tradition.

Cupcake and I have decided after tasting what the old folks talked about all this time, we will drive to the Smucker's factory and throw rocks at the building. There is no comparison to the stuff you buy in stores. We could eat this three meals a day.
After we got the jelly squared away, we used the remaining grapes and the pulp from the jelly to start up a batch of fox grape wine. A neighbor lady gave me a recipe from a local church group (I know, right?) and we followed the instructions to the letter. It's a 20 day cycle, so we are three weekend updates away from a taste test and pictures of bottles. But here is the start.

After all this, Pop's came through with another shopping bag full of tomatoes, so that means another canning of tomato sauce. We mixed things up this week, and slow cooked it in the crock pot. We are not afraid to try new things here at The Acre.

 Six more quarts of sketti sauce ready for a long winter downstairs on the shelf. And as always, we leave you for "Chicken wing Sunday"

Have a great day, and a better tomorrow :)
K&K

Junk Deere

It's hard for a person like me to admit he's an idiot, but today when the idiot's get together, they will call me "Boss". I fell victim to media hype and bought a John (Junk) Deere mower/tractor/green and yellow turd.
2008, I was just retired with a career ending wound, building a log home, and had plenty of free time on my hands and just retired pension money burning a hole in my pocket. Since I had so much free time I told my Pop I would help care-take our family cemetery. To do so meant I needed a mower, so off to S.G. Wimmer and Sons I went. I picked out one of the new fangled all wheel steering X300 models, so new the man who sold it to me had to look it up to order it. June 21st it arrived and I brought it home, full of wonder and expectations.

About one week into my wonder, I noticed the rear tires were dry rotted. The man who sold it to me is a neighbor and fishing buddy of my fathers, so I showed the brand new used once mower to him, and he agreed, yes in deed, the tires were dry rotted. Promised to make good on the tires, until I went to get the new tires, then it was an issue with the tire people, not S.G. Wimmer. Being they were so new, I had to order two off the internet from Wisconsin or some damn place far off, because nobody in the state had any in stock.

To add to my glee, the mower wouldnt start one morning. It had a total of 7 hours on it, so I couldnt imagine what was wrong, so back to S.G.'s I go with it. About a week later they call, said there is a switch that went bad, been replaced, come get it. That switch would go out six more times in two years, along with a dry rotted drive belt, a blade spindle and to top it all off, if you use the choke to start the green and yellow turd, the choke sticks, burning about 3X the gas at 1/2 the power.

Today I'm mowing my lawn with the Junk Deere, when it displayed another famous trait of the mower. It spins on a spot of chicken snot. If one rear tire hits anything wet, slick or the slightest incline, you can bet it's going to sit and spin. The other tire will be on solid dry dirt, but only the one on the wet spot will pull, guaranteed. So today I'm sitting and spinning, back up a smidge then try again, still spin, back up a little more, still spin. Then it got the notion to just slide down hill into my electric fence while I'm steady trying to pull forward. If you've ever touched an electric fence, you know you let go ASAP, but imagine hitting it right at kidney level, unable to jump off without tearing down the entire section of fence. So there I sat, getting a jolt of juice every couple of seconds until I could set the parking brake and climb over the hood to get off. Today was an all new episode in bladder and bowel control.


I've promised my Facebook followers that I'm one bad episode with this piece of crap away from rolling it into the hole I use to burn trash, cranking off a couple dozen .45 APC rounds into it just to get the petroleum products nice and flowing, then tossing a road flare on top of it and posting the video to You Tube. Today moved me one step closer to going viral.
If you must have a green and yellow turd in your home, this one is the only one I can begin to recommend.

  I would still feel safe in giving odds the thing wont start when you need it, or will put you into an electric fence first chance it gets.
Just K today